BootsnAll Travel Network



The easy walk of St. James and lots of Port in Porto

It’s interesting to think that people have been walking the Appalachian Trail in the Eastern USA for ten’s of years; it’s mind-boggling to think that people have been walking the ‘Camino de Santiago Apostella’ (Walk of St. James) in Southwestern France and northern Spain for hundred’s of years. We too wanted to take part in this experience but because we were pressed for time we did it the modern wimpy way, by bus, as our next stop was the city of Santiago de Compostella in Spain’s northwestern Gallicia region.

Everything moves at a slower pace in Santiago than the rest of Spain including how people talk, walk, and eat, which made it another nice relaxing place to stay for a few days. It has a very strong spiritual vibe with gorgeous large churches towering over and around the main square and countless “pilgrims” wandering everywhere with their traditional walking stick and conch shell necklace proudly displaying that they’ve finished the Camino. A tour guide told us that it’s only a fairly recent phenomena that so many people do some or all of this ancient religious walk across Spain as a priest rekindled enthusiasm for it a few years back with more of a goal of stimulating economic development than spiritual development. It seems to have done both so I guess sometimes you can have your tapas and eat it too.

We wrapped up our time along the western coast of the Iberian peninsula with a 3 day stop in Porto, Portugal which made it on to our “definitely must visit again someday” list. We thoroughly enjoyed eating surprisingly tasty Portuguese cuisine, especially sardines cooked all sorts of ways, listening to Fado, and drinking ‘vino verde’ and of course lots of port.

We met two really fun Italian guys at dinner the first night and met up with them for port tasting the next day and had a blast wandering around the many port lodges close together just a short walk across the river from downtown Porto. I’ve been to Lisbon before and loved it but Porto is even more special, as there’s nothing quite like strolling through cobblestone streets with laundry hanging from the iron balconies of pastel colored well-aged houses to make you feel like you have really discovered Portugal.

-Anthony



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